ceigered:Ok, I see your point Horsto, and I apologise - I guess it's hard for me to really grasp the plight of those in Europe and elsewhere where English is the language they need to learn, especially since here it's more Chinese/Japanese/Indonesian. So I'm sorry, I shouldn't really reply when I'm tired

Not to pile on to you or anything, but I think the need for English in Europe far surpasses the need for Chinese/Whatever in Australia. For a lot of Europeans, English skills are the difference between a high-paying office job and a job cleaning toilets. If you have poor English skills, you can suffer serious consequences in your career and your earnings potential. I'm sure that an Australian can get a very good job if they speak good Chinese, but at the same time, I think that Chinese skills are not essential to getting a good job.

I worked for a summer for a small Italian engineering company. All of their reports (all of them) were written in English. Italian was the language of the office, but they did business all over Europe, and the clients wanted the reports in English. You flat out could not work for this company unless your English was up to snuff (and even then, the guy with the worst English was made fun of on a regular basis - certainly not by me, but by his Italian colleagues; ho ho ho, isn't it funny, Marco speaks such bad English!)

Blimey! That's bull... shoddle! (for want of a better word that wouldn't be allowed here)

So, basically, if you want a good job (white collar work I'm guessing?) you have to speak an entirely redundant language? That's plain illogical (of whomever makes such decisions), unless their main customers are English speakers. And I'm sure that there are more italian cars being sold in Europe than there are in the el cheapo anglosphere.

ceigered:So, basically, if you want a good job (white collar work I'm guessing?) you have to speak an entirely redundant language? That's plain illogical (of whomever makes such decisions), unless their main customers are English speakers. And I'm sure that there are more italian cars being sold in Europe than there are in the el cheapo anglosphere.

I'm sure that European readers of this board can enlighten us further, but this is just my opinion (= an American who has spent a little time in Europe).

I think it depends on the country and the industry. I'm sure you can be an accountant without good (or any) English skills, since that is mainly dealing with the internal affairs of a company. For some jobs, maybe you don't need so much active knowledge, but you at least need a passive knowledge of written English, enough to read a technical document or an instruction manual.

Europe has so many languages that if you are doing business Europe-wide, you need a common language to communicate with your customers. In the case of a small country like Slovakia, you can hardly expect that your clients in other EU countries will speak Slovak, so you need another language to communicate. In the past, this was likely to be German, but now, it is likely to be English.

In any case, having no English skills whatsoever would be a hindrance to finding high-paying employment in much of Europe.

ceigered:Blimey! That's bull... shoddle! (for want of a better word that wouldn't be allowed here)

So, basically, if you want a good job (white collar work I'm guessing?) you have to speak an entirely redundant language? That's plain illogical (of whomever makes such decisions), unless their main customers are English speakers.

It has some historical reasons after WW2. Just to mention some keywords: marshal plan, iron curtain, cruise missiles, NATO, Warsaw Pact (doesn't excist anymore, including russian language as a bridge language) etc. which did need a working bridge language.

jan aleksan:
And to be the most scientific, the best would be to compare the content need to reach (let's say) level C1 of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (which is a reference in europe, and now exist also in esperanto)

Rudolf Fischer (username Rudolf F. in Lernu) lectured Esperanto at the university of Münster last year. 8 of 11 students voluntarily went into the examination for the level A2 after only 28 hours of studying, and the all passed the examination.
If you have questions you can ask him, he certainly willingly will answer your questions.

erinja:
In any case, having no English skills whatsoever would be a hindrance to finding high-paying employment in much of Europe.

Yes, erinja, you are right.
To give a further example (I already wrote that in another thread):
German sciencist no longer write their publications in german, the all write in english.
One reason for that is, that they invented a new system for evaluating scientists and scientific projects: they count the number of publications and the number of citations of these publications. To get the greatest possible audience you have to write in english.

horsto:

jan aleksan:
And to be the most scientific, the best would be to compare the content need to reach (let's say) level C1 of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (which is a reference in europe, and now exist also in esperanto)

Rudolf Fischer (username Rudolf F. in Lernu) lectured Esperanto at the university of Münster last year. 8 of 11 students voluntarily went into the examination for the level A2 after only 28 hours of studying, and the all passed the examination.
If you have questions you can ask him, he certainly willingly will answer your questions.

No need I totally believe it.

English is incredibly complicated and perversely illogical

I disagree. Compared with Polish or Finnish English is just primitive. (Please forgive me if You feel offended, I didn't mean to.) In my opinion those esperantists who are trying to prove how English is difficut and how eo is not, exagerate a bit. Such way of supporting eo I find not convincing.

But anyway it's a pity that after learning English for about 6-7 years I can speak it more or less, I estimate my level about B1-B2, but I can't *feel* it. I can never judge if what I say sounds pretty, I suppose that this message seems weird for a native speaker, I'm not confident at all. I can communicate but I am not able to impress anyone with the way I speak. In Polish eloquence is one of my biggest advantages, switched to English I loose it.
I enjoy eo so much because nobody is disadvantaged or advantaged, I can be myself and not worry about the way I am saying something. And to this extent I agree with R. Kvasniak - reaching a true fluence in English or any language is availible for elites.

Tarnoob:I can never judge if what I say sounds pretty, I suppose that this message seems weird for a native speaker, I'm not confident at all.

No Tarboob. What you are saying does not seem weird to me. You come from a country where people are very aware about language. Polish people seem to understand that their language is difficult for foreigners to learn. I have never been to a country where the people were more patient with my poor language skills than Poland. I have had Polish people say "thank you" to me because I was trying to speak to them in Polish.

When I speak to my Polish coworkers on the phone, we speak in English, French, Polish, anything to communicate. My coworker's daughter is a Spanish student. I have spoken to her on the phone in Spanish so she could translate for her father. My Polish friends will do anything to make sure that language does not make our business suffer. (Anything except learn Esperanto. They still think I'm crazy on that subject)

I doubt foreigners encounter the same type of treatment when they are learning English in an English speaking country. I can say this because I see how many of my coworkers and neighbors see English as the world's lingua franca and take it for granted.

erinja:I'm sure you can be an accountant without good (or any) English skills, since that is mainly dealing with the internal affairs of a company. For some jobs, maybe you don't need so much active knowledge, but you at least need a passive knowledge of written English, enough to read a technical document or an instruction manual.

The problem is that business is so globalised these days that a lot of European companies are ultimately owned by US companies. I'm an accountant (auditor) and have a UK manufacturing client who is owned by a German manufacturing company who are owned by a firm in Cincinnati. As part of my audit I was recently at the site in Germany and every single accountant I met there spoke good English. They had no choice: they have to report to their owners in the US on a daily basis, in English of course. All their day to day work is in English, all their email communication between each other is in English in case someone from America needs to understand it.

I think there are very few "good" jobs you could do in western Europe without a high level of English. In Eastern Europe I imagine that it's a bit different.

Well, it is simmilar, without knowing English you're nobody.

But there are some exceptions and curiosities. For example my father works for Michelin, company having French roots, so everyone has obligatory course of French. There is also great deal of exchanges of employees from factories all over the world - once upon a time father was sent to France for a year, some of his colleagues went to China, Brazil or Turkey, workers from those countries have trips to Poland as well. They all speak French with each other, no matter which country are you from and what other languages you know. This is how Michelin made French an international language for a single community.

And I think it may be one of the reasons of popularity of English.

Tarboob

Well, I hope it was just an error in typing (laugh).

Thank you Andogigi for being so understanding, it is really consoling to hear something like this from a native speaker. However, I have doubts if I can expect such treatment from others.

But not to change the subject:
Kvasnak's argument is of course true, no doubts that eo is much easier. Though, I don't know anyone who learns Esperanto only because it is simple. It is an crucial advantage and eo really would be an excellent world language, but no one bothers to introduce it. The Earth or at least the West (I mean entire North America and Europe) is used to English, would anybody change it if it was not necessary?

And by the way I would like to indicate that there are no Esperanto companies. Maybe this is why for over century it is not widely spoken. If someone is not made to know eo, they will not bother to lear it.

To my mind Esperanto would be much better employed as a propaedeutic vehicle for the learning of foreign languages than touted as the solution to the world's language problems. The fina venko isn't going to happen. Why waste your time arguing for it?

I bet that if such introductions were conducted in several countries, more or less at the same time, the fina venko would come itself.